Introduction to HumanitiesLecture 11

Anselm & Aquinas

By David Kelsey

Saint Anselm

• Saint Anselm of Canterbury lived from 1033-1109.• He was a monk and later Archbishop of Canterbury.• Wanted to see how far argument and reason could substantiate the central

doctrines of Christianity.• He invented the ontological argument for the existence of God.

Defining GOD

• According to the Judeao-Christian-Islamic tradition: God is the greatest or most perfect possible being.

– What can we infer about God from this?

– If God is perfect, he has every perfection.

• Thus, God is:– Omnipotent: maximally powerful

– Omniscient: maximally knowledgeable

– Omnibenevolent: is perfectly good

– Omnipresent: is everywhere

• What other perfections might there be?

Anselm’sOntological Argument

• Anselm’s concept of God:– Anselm uses the notion of God seen in the Judeao-Christian-Islamic tradition.

– For Anselm: God is ‘something than which nothing greater can be conceived’.• This is not the same concept as the greatest being we can conceive. Such a concept would be

limited by the way us humans conceive of things….

– Anselm is assuming the Great chain of being here.• If you run up and down the chain you find it easy to conceive of beings both lesser and greater.• Your mind is carried to greater and greater things…

Anselm’s Reductio

• Anselm’s argument is a Reductio Ad Absurdum. The basic form of the reductio:

– Assume God doesn’t exist

– But then God isn’t the being than which nothing greater can be conceived.

– But God is the being than which nothing greater can be conceived.

– Thus, God exists.

The form of Anselm’s argument

• Anselm’s argument:– 1. Assume God exists in the understanding alone.

– 2. God is something than which nothing greater can be conceived.

– 3. Something than which nothing greater can be conceived can be conceived to exist in reality.

– 4. It is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding alone.

– 5. God is a being than which a greater can be conceived. (from 1 and 4)

– Thus, 6. God exists. (from 1, 2 and 5)

Denying premise 2

• Denying premise 2:– Some argue that premise 2 is false.

– They say that such a definition of God is incorrect.

– Thoughts…

Denying premise 3

• Challenging the third premise:– Can you conceive of God as existing in reality?

Denying premise 4

• Can we deny premise 4:– We can do this by claiming that existence in reality is not a

perfection.

– Thus, a being that existed in both the understanding and in reality is not more prefect than a being that existed just in the understanding.

• Anselm’s reply would probably go like this: existence entails the ability to use all of one’s perfections

• Counter: Is existence the kind of thing that can even be a perfection at all?

Defining God into existence

• Hume criticizes the Ontological argument for trying to define God into existence.

– For Hume, it may be that thinking of God entails thinking that he exists but this concerns only relations of ideas not matters of fact.

• A relation of idea is:– Discoverable by the mere operations of thought, without

dependence on anything existent in the universe…• A matter of fact is:

– Discoverable by observation of the external world…– So even though thinking God entails thinking he exists, this has

nothing to do with whether God in fact exists.• A relation among ideas, even one that is necessary, gets no traction

and can have no causal power on how things are in the world.• Relations of ideas cannot prove matters of fact. About matters of fact,

we must consult experience.

Refutation bylogical analogy

• Refutation by Logical Analogy:– Many people think that Anselm’s argument just has to be wrong for it just

shows too much.

– Can’t we give an argument of the same form as Anselm’s, but for an obviously false conclusion.

• Since the new argument isn’t sound, neither is Anselm’s.• This move is called Refutation by logical analogy.

Gaunilo’s parody

• Here is the argument:– 1. Assume the greatest possible island exists in the understanding

alone.– 2. The greatest possible island is the island than which no greater

can be conceived.– 3. The island than which no greater can be conceived can be

conceived to exist in reality.– 4. It is greater to exist in reality than in the understanding alone.– 5. The greatest possible island is an island than which a greater

can be conceived. (from 1 & 4)– Thus, 6. The greatest possible island exists. (from 1, 2 and 5)

Anselm’s best reply

• Anselm’s reply:– Can the greatest possible island even exist in reality?

– Although the greatest possible being could have all the perfections to the greatest degree, could an island really have them?

Aquinas

• Saint Thomas Aquinas – Lived from 1225-1274.

– A monk whose writings have been deemed authoritative by the Catholic Church.

– In 1244 became a friar. Later he became a priest and in 1323 was made a Saint.

– Heavily influenced by the works of Aristotle.

– In his work Summa Theologica he gave 5 different argument’s for God’s existence.

– He called these the 5 ways.

Theism

• There are 3 general argument patterns for Theism.– Theism, Atheism & Agnosticism

• We have so far seen one of these argument patterns: the Ontological argument.• Ontological Arguments:

– Argue that by an analysis of the very concept of God he must exist.

• Cosmological Arguments:– The form of the argument is roughly this:

• There must be a first cause of all things and this first cause must be God.

• Teleological Arguments:– Argue for God’s existence via premises about the design or goals or purposes of

things.

Aquinas’ 5 ways

• The first 4 ways:– Different versions of the Cosmological argument.

– Each way uses a different sense of the word ‘cause’.

– In each case Aquinas wants to show that there is an uncaused cause…

– All Cosmological arguments have a form like this:• 1. There is something that causes everything else, I.e. a first cause.

• 2. Only God could be a first cause.

• 3. Thus, there is a God.

• The final way: a version of the teleological argument.

The first way

• The form of the first way:– 1) Things change.

– 2) Change is an alteration in which something becomes actually what it was only potentially until then.

– 3) Everything that changes must be made to change by another thing.

– 4) But if one thing causes change in another, either the cause is a first cause of change or it is caused to change by another (from 3)

– 5) There couldn’t be an open causal chain of changing changers going back forever into the past.

– 6) Thus, there is an unchanging changer, a first cause of change. (from 1 & 5)

– 7) And this first cause is God.

Aquinas’ argument for the 3rd premise

• The third premise: 3) Everything that changes must be changed by another thing.

– A change from potentiality to actuality can only be brought about by something that is already actual.

• The ball and batter…

– Nothing can be both potential and actual in the same respect.

– So nothing can change itself.

• Thoughts on this argument? Can you think of anything that could change itself?

Aquinas’ argument for the 5th premise

• The 5th premise: There couldn’t be an open causal chain of changing changers going back forever into the past.

– In this case there is no first cause of change• Open causal chain: an infinite number of things, one causing change in the other…

– Ball and Batter…

– But then there couldn’t be any intermediate causes either• Such causes could only cause change if actualized themselves by some prior cause.• Ball and Batter again…

– But if there weren’t any intermediate changers there would be no change at all.

• Thoughts on this argument?– Is it possible that we have intermediate causes of change without a first cause?

– Maybe there is another possibility: a closed loop of intermediate changers…

The Fourth Way

• The fourth way:– 1) Some things are good (noble and true).

– 2) Some things are better (or more noble or truer) than other things.

– 3) These better (more noble and truer) things have more good (are more noble and are truer) in accord with their distance from a maximum.

• Comparative judgments…

– 4) if something that is maximally true, good and noble were not in existence then there would be no things possessing truth, goodness and nobility to a lesser degree.

• So whatever is maximally good (noble and true) is the cause of whatever else that is good

– 5) Thus, something is maximally good and causes everything else that is good (from 1 & 4)

– 6) This maximally good thing we call GOD.

Finishing the argument

• Something to notice:– Notice the appeal that this argument makes to the great chain of being…

• The first 3 premises:• The fourth premise:

– Question: This seems to imply that the maximally good thing is the cause of whatever else is good.

– Questions? • Premise 5:• The conclusion:

The Fifth Way: the argument from design

• The argument from design:– 1. A machine is the effect of intelligence

• For every clock…

– 2. The world is like a machine• It is an ordered whole. Newtonian mechanics tells us so.• So the world is like a clock…

– 3. Thus, the world is the effect of some intelligence

– An argument a posteriori: • it is an argument that depends upon experience and matters of fact…

– An argument by analogy:• Worlds and machines…

– A causal argument:• The first premise and conclusion…

Thoughts aboutthe fifth way

• Thoughts about the fifth way?– Finding a relevant difference:

• Anyone see a relevant difference?

• Things vs. universes?

– Could something besides God be the designer of the universe?• Other possible designers:

– Gravity?

– Evolution?

• Aquinas’ reply…

Critiquing the Argument from design

• Critiquing the argument from design:– Note: These criticisms are taken from David Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion…

– 1. A posteriori arguments are never valid and can never entail their conclusions. Thus, the most the argument from design can give us is probability…

– 2. Causal arguments follow this principle: the cause must be proportioned to the effect.

• “If the cause be known only by the effect, we never ought to ascribe to it any qualities, beyond what are precisely requisite to produce the effect.” (Enquiry, 190)

• But if you look around the world it certainly isn’t perfectly good, intelligent or wise. It seems to have none of the qualities we attribute to God and so cannot prove the existence of a perfect God…

The third response to the design argument

• Taking the analogy seriously: The analogy is between machines and their designers and the universe and its designer.

– Many people often cooperate to make a machine Many Gods

– Wicked people can create technological marvels a wicked God

– Machines are made by mortals a Mortal God

– The best machines are a result of a long history of gradual improvements.• But then “Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an

eternity, ere this system was struck out; much labor lost; many fruitless trials made; and a slow but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making.” (Dialogues, 36)

– What Hume shows us here is that any of these is possible.